Singita sommelier completes top wine course
Chris Ford, a sommelier for Singita Game Reserves, was selected as one of only 20 participants to attend the 2010 Wine Judging Academy hosted by Wine Magazine (a sister publication to Hotel & Restaurant) and wine critic and writer Michael Fridjhon in Cape Town recently.
Ford, who joined Singita in 2006 as the very first candidate of Singita Premier Wine's Sommelier Trainee Programme, is the second Singita sommelier to be selected for this honour and to have passed this tough exam with flying colours.
In 2008 Francois Rautenbach, who is responsible for Singita's Sommelier Training Programme and who heads up Singita Premier Wine Direct, was the first Singita candidate to be selected to attend the Wine Judging Academy.
Launched in 2007, Wine Judging Academy has as its key objective increasing the number of competent wine judges at work in the industry and raising the standard of local judging.
This year the two-and-a-half day course included intensive tasting of over 250 South African and international wines. Specifically "spiked" samples of control wine were also tasted to highlight a variety of faults occurring in wines, covering both the causes and organoleptic evaluation.
Singita Game Reserves is one of the most influential buyers of wine in South Africa. Winelists at its lodges in South Arica, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have about 200 labels. Singita is the only hospitality organization in South Africa to have had two members selected to participate in the Wine Tasting Academy.
The Singita product offering includes nine, low-impact, high-end lodges in four destinations including the Kruger National Park and Sabi Sand in South Africa, as well as in Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
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